Pakistan to Pay for Militants’ Attack on Indian Army in Kashmir: Defense Minister

India has accused Pakistan’s military of being been behind militants’ attacks on its military position in the Indian-controlled Jammu and Kashmir, threatening that Islamabad would “pay for this misadventure”.

Indian Defense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told reporters on Monday that the army had proof that the militants involved in an attack on the Sunjuwan Military Station in Jammu had been members of a Pakistan-based militant group.

“Pakistan is expanding the arc of terror… resorting to ceasefire violations to assist infiltration,” she claimed.

Meanwhile, officials from India’s paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) said on Tuesday that they were still fighting militants who had tried the day before to storm one of their bases in Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar.

India has long accused Pakistan of training and arming militants and helping them infiltrate across the heavily militarized Line of Control into Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim majority state.

Pakistan rejected India’s latest allegations, criticizing the country’s officials for hastily blaming Islamabad for the deadly attacks in the region.

Such accusations, according to a recent statement by Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, stem from India’s attempts to divert attention from its own “state terrorism” in the area to include “the brutalization of peaceful, unarmed Kashmiris”.

Since partition 71 years ago, India and Pakistan have fought four wars, three of them over Kashmir. The majority of the 12.5mn population of Kashmir are Muslims.